


Just Gonna Stand There

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: BAMF Castiel, Captivity, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Non-consensual wing touching, Rescue, Torture, threat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 15:12:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14957003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Gabriel learns that someone is targeting the Winchesters. And he doesn't care, except that Cas is with them and considered a welcome bonus.So he'll get these people first, because no one else is hurting his little brother.That was the plan.





	Just Gonna Stand There

Gabriel didn’t even remember falling asleep. But when he heard the voice crooning his name, when he heard the sound of a fingernail flicking the head of a match, both those things brought him instantly, fearfully awake.

And sent him cringing into the corner of the room, wings gathered in behind him, as if it would make a difference at all.

He’d left a trail, glistening smears that followed him everywhere, that were on everything.

A spark anywhere in this room would find its way back to him and he would die screaming in pain.

“Easy, easy," the voice said. But the match was coming closer, and it was all Gabriel could focus on, as it burned its way down the wood, hungry for anything to consume.

“Stop,” he pleaded, without hesitation, long past the stage where pride or defiance would have bound his tongue. “Please, please, stop!”

*-*

It had started three weeks earlier. Word had it that those idiot Winchesters had caught the eye of a powerful player. Someone hiding behind third party deals and a group of very skilled lackeys.

Gabriel picked up their trail a hundred or so miles just north of Lebanon, far too close to that bunker for his comfort levels, and decided that was as near to his brother as this person and his gang would get.

Because he’d heard other things too; that, while the Winchesters had done something to draw this focus on them, and Gabriel wouldn’t be surprised because they had a knack for it, the angel with them was also of interest.

Gabriel didn’t care which sort, because he was going to keep Castiel out of this. And since his little brother would rather die than abandon those two, even at the moments when they deserved it, that left Gabriel two options.

One was to snatch Castiel, and he knew his dumbass fledgling would fight, hard, and might end up getting hurt which was the opposite of Gabriel’s aims. Not to mention Castiel would be pissed at him forever, especially if he found that Gabriel had left the Winchesters in harm’s way.

The other was to do what he was doing now; follow the men and women in suits, who looked like a gang of murderous lawyers, back to their boss and persuade him to leave off.

What form that persuasion might take, well...that they’d just have to see.

And that was how he came to be waiting for them, when they came out of their motel that morning.

He figured it would go like this: he’d disable maybe three or four, enough to reduce their strength to the point where they would likely fall back to whoever had sent them, and Gabriel would follow.

It didn’t quite go like that.

He’d broken the back of the first one to come out, grabbed him by the neck and dropped to a crouch, and brought the guy down across his knee in one fluid movement.

They all heard the crack, and then Gabriel just tossed him aside.

Two of them came at him at once, then, and they had extendable batons. Clearly, they didn’t think to need guns, and being in such a public place they probably didn’t want the attention.

Which meant they also thought this was going to be over fast enough not to draw any.

Gabriel grinned, and let his sword materialise in his hand.

Later, he would know that was his first mistake. Or his second? At that point he had trouble keeping track.

But he parried their blows, and knocked the guy out cold with a backhanded slap that sent him top over tails to the ground, and broken the woman’s sternum with a flat handed punch that drove her back nearly ten feet.

The others came at him, more cautious, and Gabriel spun the sword enticingly in his hand.

Two or three more and they’d-

Something hit him hard in the back. It felt like fire scrawling over his body, and he could sense it rippling over him as it formed letters and symbols that bundled him up in pain.

He twisted around as he stumbled to his knees, and saw another one of them with hand outstretched, and his palm full of blood, muttering something under his breath.

Of course. They were coming up against the Winchesters, with a view to probably killing them and then seizing their angel as a convenient extra.

Well. They’d gotten hold of an angel a little early.

Gabriel tried to stand, but his legs seemed to seize up. The entire motel, the car park, those fuckers, there were all spinning around him. He collapsed onto his side, the pain still eating at him, as they came to stand over him.

“Get the car,” one of them said, “and the shackles and hood.” And then, to Gabriel, “I don’t suppose you know an angel named Castiel?”

Gabriel forced a chuckle through his pain, though it felt like spitting razor blades. 

“I'm Castiel.”

“Of course you are,” the man said, and then a black hood was fastened over his head.

*-*

When Gabriel woke up, the old man was sitting on a chair facing him. He himself had been dumped on the floor, so inhospitable, but he wasn’t restrained any more.

Fucking idiots. He glared at the man, who had two more guards flanking him, dressed like the ones from the motel, and started to his feet.

“First, you’re going to tell me what you want with my little brother,” Gabriel said.

The man smiled affably. “And then?”

“And then I’m probably going to rip your-”

He didn’t get to finish.

The room must have been equipped with some kind of concealed sprinkler system (after, once he’d settled down enough, he’d looked for any way to damage or block it, unsuccessfully) because he was suddenly drenched in liquid.

It came at him from the ceiling, and the walls, and he was sodden in seconds. But it wasn’t water. It smelled old, heavy, and he staggered back, slipping in the puddles of it on the floor.

It was oil. Holy oil.

The sprinklers clicked off, and he was left standing there, panting, as the three of them watched him.

The old man had a box of matches in his hands, and one was poised over the strike paper.

“I’ve heard,” he said, so calmly, as if they were discussing the weather, or plans for the weekend, “that it’s an excruciating experience. So much worse than for humans. Our nerves are quickly destroyed, and very few of us would ever survive that depth or breadth of burn.

“But angels…. Sturdier. You would likely survive for a few days, or longer. In constant, unrelenting agony. With death your only release. And I would make it my personal responsibility, dear angel, to keep you among us for as long as humanly possible.”

Gabriel didn’t realise he had his hands held up, but he couldn’t drop them. “Just…. What the hell do you want?”

The old man stood up, stiffly. He still held the matches, and Gabriel wasn’t idiot enough to think he could wrestle them away before one got struck and there was fire everywhere.

“You'll burn too, if you try it,” Gabriel said. It was the only card he had left to play. If they lit that match, and he caught, he’d damn well run at them.

“Psh,” the old man said. “I’m what you might say, flame proof.” He stopped long enough to tug open his shirt, and Gabriel caught the hint of some archaic language that had at one point it seemed been cut into his skin with an artist’s precision.

“Your little followers aren’t.”

“But they are loyal. And willing to die for me, in whatever way is required. But for now, I suspect we’re both tired. I’ll come back later, and we can chat some more.”

Part of Gabriel wanted to rush them, now while they were leaving, while he had his chance.

And as if the old man knew his game, a match came soaring over their heads, through the open doorway, and landed in the oil.

Gabriel screamed, and staggered back so fast that he slipped and fell, and was left kicking his way to the furthest wall.

He couldn’t think rationally, couldn't see that the oil hadn’t burst into life and came seeking him with flames.

The match hadn’t been lit.

He heard mocking laughter as the door closed, and then he was left there alone, panting,and finally, sobbing.

*-*

The old man came and went with no schedule that Gabriel could work out. He was never alone, and whoever he was with always had some source of fire on him. Matches, a lighter, even an odd bracelet with some kind of sparking device.

They always stood back, and Gabriel was under no illusion that the room would be on fire before he could make a dive for them, or the door.

He thought about trying it, anyway, after the first few days. Because those days were the worst.

The old man would bring in more oil - as if any was required; the sprinklers came on at random intervals, but frequently enough that Gabriel was always coated - and insist on rubbing it into Gabriel’s wings.

He leered as he did so, and he seemed to know how intimate an act this was for angels. Only family got to touch an angel’s wings, and this was a frightening and humiliating breach of that boundary. 

The guy was thorough, urging Gabriel to summon and spread his wings, and making sure each feather received attention. He stroked his fingers across the arches, and Gabriel wondered if this was what the bastard had in mind for Castiel.

This room was purpose built for mind fucking an angel, and maybe killing one when there was no more fun to be had.

They’d come across him because he’d been an idiot. 

He couldn’t cope with the thought of Castiel in here, this human’s fingers in his feathers, never knowing when one of them might just set him alight.

And then a few days after that, while he sat with his back to the old man, wings splayed, he felt a sudden searing pain, and saw that his wing was on fire.

He screamed, the wing flapping as the fire ate its way through the nearest feathers, and this was it, he was going to burn alive.

But then the old man simply grabbed his wing, and used his hands to put out the flames.

He nudged his fingers through the burnt feathers, and when he withdrew they were stained with ash.

Gabriel’s wing throbbed and he tugged it to him, as if that was any protection.

The old man hummed happily as he stood up.

“My people are closing in on those hunters. It must be the right moment, you see. And initially, I was going to have them simply killed. But I’m rethinking, now. I’ll bring them back here, and Castiel. Make them watch as I play with him.”

“Please,” Gabriel stuttered. “Please, don’t do this to my brother.”

The old man sighed at him. “Oh, dear angel. Yes, this was to be his room, and his torment. But since then, I’m come up with something much, much worse.”

*-*

The old man glanced at the match, the flame casting a harsh orange glow over his features.

If Gabriel hadn’t been so fixated on it, on how close it was to him (though it could be on the other side of the room and it would still get him) he might have heard the screaming, and the sound of fighting.

But he didn’t.

“I underestimated them,” the old man said. “Him.”

And then he threw the match.

Two things happened, then, in very quick succession.

The tip of a blade appeared through the front of the old man’s chest and he gave a breathy cry before he was mercilessly shoved aside.

And the second thing was that the match didn’t fall.

It hovered, mere feet from Gabriel, as if some invisible force had caught and held it there, floating.

Castiel's hand was outstretched, his face focused, and Gabriel couldn’t believe his little brother had come for him.

Into the middle of a room soaked with holy oil where they could be burned alive at any moment.

“Castiel,” he gasped.

Castiel flicked his glance from the match to Gabriel and back.

“Can you get up?”

Gabriel pushed himself to his feet, slid a little, but made sure to keep clear of the match. 

He grabbed the back of Castiel’s coat, and guided him backwards, to the door, and looked out into the corridor.

There were maybe four or five dead humans, and another three or four who were going to need permanent care for the rest of their lives.

“Okay,” he said, and he pulled Castiel out into the corridor. 

Castiel extinguished the match, and let it fall, but they had both clearly been expecting what happened next. It was still hot, hot enough to lit the oil, and a second later the room was full of nothing but fire.

Castiel pushed him back, and made a gesture towards the door which slammed shut before the fire could reach them.

Gabriel stared at it fearfully, at the trail of oil he’d left from the room to where he stood, but the fire didn’t follow.

The room was sealed. Of course it was. They traipsed oil in and out of that room each time they came to torture him. It had to be sealed to avoid losing the building, wherever they were, when the time came to finish him.

“Are you alright?”

Gabriel could only look at Castiel when his brother touched his shoulder.

“Gabriel.”

He nodded, though it was a lie, and one that Castiel would see right through.

“Yeah. Of course.”

Castiel cocked his head to one side, studying him, blue eyes piercing.

“Of course,” he said, and then he was turning Gabriel away, leading him out of that place and towards a beat up old truck.

*-*

“It was Sam’s idea,” Castiel said. “Modified on how they help birds after oil spills.”

Gabriel stared at the contraption set up in the shower: several barrels of soapy water, and what Castiel told him was a pressure washer.

Figured it was the Samsquatch’s brain behind this one. Dean would probably have just shoved him in one of their industrial washing machines.

They both stripped down, Gabriel wondering how long it would take before he felt recovered enough to use his Grace to clean up his clothes, and noting that Castiel too was preferring to do things the human way, and had put both their outfits in a laundry hamper.

“I’m not as strong as I was,” he said, as if it was something to apologise for, as if Gabriel didn’t know, as if he wouldn’t really care, as if it wasn’t the reason that Gabriel had gone after those creeps before they got any closer to Castiel than they already were.

“It’s okay” he said. 

“You could still have prayed to me. I would have found a way to help you.”

Gabriel huffed. Castiel seemed to be missing out on the fact that he had found a way, not only to locate him, but rescue him, and he’d done it alone.

The first those two humans had known about it was when Castiel had led him downstairs, and told them that they needed their help.

“And have two of us stuck there?” He didn’t want to tell Castiel that the way he’d found him…. That the room had been intended for him, not for his older brother. “How’d you find me anyway?”

Castiel guided him towards the barrels, and turned on the nozzle. A fine spray of soapy water hit Gabriel’s wings, and he’d never thought getting his wings cleared with wash soap could have felt so good.

“A couple of hunters heard word that someone was looking for Dean and Sam, and that they were not friends. And then we saw reports of a fight in a motel north of here, and we were able to find out an angel blade was recovered at the scene.”

“I want that back, by the way,” Gabriel said.

Castiel shushed him. “We will. Let’s get you better first. So I went north, and I could sense you’d been there, and I followed the trail.”

Gabriel turned around, forcing Castiel to pause in his ministrations, and ran his finger along the tattoo that still lay dark against his abdomen. 

“You ever gonna get rid of that? Because as long as you’re sporting it, no other angel can find you.”

“I know.”

“I can’t find you either.”

Castiel turned him back around, and went back to spraying his wings.


End file.
